On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 8:06 AM, Michael Snow <wikipe...@frontier.com> wrote: > .. Honestly, I must say that it > is a colossal disappointment to find that with all the posts I've seen > both here and on internal-l, nobody has yet made a single edit to the > talk page on Meta where the letter was posted. Doesn't anybody here know > how to use a wiki?
Michael, the board announcement is not a good way to start a conversation. Perhaps it is you who doesn't know how to use a wiki. :P It is a pronouncement, and talks about "criteria" which are not in the agreement the chapters recently signed. If the letter talked about improvements to be made to the next agreement, you would have a lot of positive activity around the letter. The recently signed agreement covers this financial year, and *only* this next financial year. Now is a good time to start working on the next agreement, so that we can slowly work through all the issues related to 35+ countries with a chapter. If the WMF wanted to make changes to the current agreement, and recognised that late changes are going to be difficult, we could work with you make some important changes which raise the bar but do not adversely and unnecessarily exclude anyone who has already signed the agreement. To begin with, chapters would be wanting a tiered approach to these criteria. For example, tax-deductibility does not make sense for a small chapter, and it is usually impossible for small organisations to obtain this. It is silly to exclude a chapter on this basis - the WMF cant become tax-deductible in these countries anyway, so there is no possible benefit to the donor if the chapter is excluded from the fundraising process because they are not tax-deductible. Until the chapter becomes tax-deductible, there is no possibility for the donor to obtain a tax deduction. In some countries it is very inappropriate to fundraise without government approval, so the WMF shouldnt be fundraising in these countries anyway. Chapters receiving significant amounts of dollars should use those funds to pursue the often difficult process of tax-deductibility. There are only a few chapters who fall into this bracket, yet WMF is trying to reduce all chapters to wikipedia clubs. And in doing so, the WMF wont have the benefit of the donations that are made because the donor responds well to the fact they know in advance that the money goes to a local organisation - an organisation which is accountable to the local regulatory system. This letter comes on the heels of WMF staff privately contacting individual on chapter boards over the last week and telling them that they are breaking the fundraising agreement, after the chapters have sought qualified opinions on the matter and signed the agreement on that basis. Now we know why. Perhaps I should post those private conversations to the wiki so we can use the wiki to discuss the real problem: how the WMF is implementing the improvement. -- John Vandenberg _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l